1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to preparation of hydrocarbon conversion catalysts comprising nickel-containing aluminosilicates. More particularly it relates to preparation of a zeolite-based catalyst of low alkali metal content comprising a relatively high percentage of nickel and a relatively low percentage of Group VI-B hydrogenation metal components, which catalyst is particularly useful in a hydrocracking process.
The instant invention is particularly useful for the preparation of hydrocracking catalysts described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,694,345 to Bittner and incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Prior Art
Conventionally, hydrogenation metal components are composited with a zeolite carrier by any of the techniques known in the art such as ion exchange and/or impregnation. A difficulty with the ion exchange procedure when seeking comparatively high nickel loadings on the zeolite is that multiple exchanges may be required, rendering this procedure time-consuming and laborious for commercial production. Impregnation has been suggested, however, this procedure often requires multiple impregnating steps since it is usually exceedingly difficult, and often impossible to prepare impregnating solutions of sufficiently high concentration so as to uniformly incorporate the desired amount of metal, in one step without undue precipitation of the metals and/or agglomeration of the zeolite.